September 10, 2012

Hey Family and Friends!! I LOVE being a missionary!! We have had so much fun this week and there is so much work to do!! It is amazing the miracles that are coming to our mission because of the temple being built in Calgary!!! Well I have lots to tell you so here goes!! We will start with Tuesday. First we had DDM's and then somehow Sister Batty and I convinced the Elders to go to lunch at the Calgary Tower! It was so fun! So you ride all the way to the top and there is a retaurant up there...the coolest thing about the restaurant is that it spins as you eat, so you get to see the entire city during the course of your meal. It was lots of fun! Then we also got to go out on the observation deck. It was lots of fun. Then we had to hurry and do our emails because we had appts to go to...we were late to everything because traffic was super busy because it was the first day of school. But we got everything done we needed to. So then we went to help Carmen with the book and we are still making progress. Then we had supper with the Larson's. They are an adorable older couple. Then we headed to ESL. It was so great!! We had like 7 new students!! It is really fun to help out at that class...but it makes me realize how bad my grammar is. But it is fun. And the students that come are great! Wednesday we just did a bunch of stop-bys and then helped Carmen a little bit. Then we had supper with the Higham's. He is the bishop of one of the wards. He also gave me a book that he wrote...he gives one to all the Sister Missionaries that serve in his ward...it is called "So I went out with this guy last night..." It is an adorable book and maybe it will come in handy when I get back. On our way home we taught Bill about the Atonement and how to more fully apply it in his life. Thursday we had our weekly plannin session and then we did a bunch of stop-bys. So all of the companionships in our mission were given 400 temple invitations to give out...well now we have under 2 weeks until all the sisters start training...and our goal is to give out all of them. So we definitely have our work cut out for us!! Then we had dinner with the Penner's! Oh, my! Funniest Story...So we have a man in our ward who is deathly allergic to fragrances. No one in our ward is supposed to wear anything with any type of fragrance. That's just common courtesy, since there are a lot of people, especially in this ward, that are this way. Brother Penner, though, had to move here from his last town because the air was effecting him so drastically. Needless to say, we don't wear much of anything in the way of smell-good-stuff on the day that we have dinner with his family. We were so careful all day not to put on lotion or anything else. We are about 3 minutes from their house, on the way to dinner when I realized what a horrible headache I had. So I asked Sister Batty if she thought I should put Peppermint Oil on, which is an Essential Oil which works amazingly well. I couldn't understand why I shouldn't, and neither could she. So I did. A lot of it. And just as we started to smell it, I said, "ooh, it smells so good--OH NO!!!" We were sitting in the car at a stoplight, 15 minutes from our house and 10 from the church. I got the brilliant plan to wipe it off with my hands, but that just meant it moved from my forehead to my hands. So then I was going to wipe it on my sweater, but then it was still on my clothes. We were panicking, searching for anything to get the stuff off with. We were about to kill one of our high councilmen! Luckily we haven't had car inspections lately, so Sister Batty had a sweater in the backseat. I grabbed it and started to scrub my forehead with it. We tried to go to our WML's house so we could wash my face, but he wasn't home, and we were out of time. We go to the house and decide that I will just immediately ask to use the washroom. Before we get out of the car, I leaned over and asked if Sister Batty could smell it on me still. Well, what's a good companion to do? Sister Batty sniffed my forehead! Yep, she could still smell it. We get out of the car and realize that maybe it's just the car that is super strong, so as we are walking across the street, I asked again, and yep, she sniffed my forehead again. It wasn't too bad. Maybe we would just send him to the hospital...less worries. We get to the door, knock, and go in...and guess what? Brother Penner wasn't even there! He was out passing out food drive bags and would be gone all night. So there I sit, with a red, raw forehead, and a headache...yep, we just about died laughing. We decided if you look up the phrase "Gongshow" in a dictionary, our pictures would be next to it, probably holding a vial of Peppermint Oil and black sweater. Then we had a great lesson with the Ford boys. We had a lesson about judging people so we did a little object lesson with them. Have you ever seen the one they do in seminary a lot where there is a picture of Christ behind a paper on a dart board and when you take it off after throwing darts at it you realize you did it to Christ? Well we did something similar to that and it was really effective and of course the boys liked it. Friday was a crazy busy day!! We had back-to-back appts which is great!! First we started with Sister Braithwaite. She is a widow that lives in a care center. She is really nice and appreciated our visit. Then we kept going with Sister Jiang and we taught her the Doctrine of Christ/Atonement. She is totally taught by the spirit and it is so neat to watch her learn and have things just finally click. Then we helped Sister Hobbs again. She is great and can really use our help! Then we taught Tammy about the importance of taking the Sacrament and keeping the Sabbath Day Holy because she hasn't come to church for a few weeks...she didn't come this week either...but hopefully she will come next week. Then we had supper with a new family that just moved into the ward from Sasketchwan, the Flecks. They had lots of stories from their last branch. I can't imagine living in a place where the chuch is basically non existent. They have adaorable children so we had lots of fun there. Then last but not least, we had a lesson with Sister Baptiste. She has been really busy with visiting her children, but we had a quick lesson about reading the scriptures and committed her to read everyday! Saturday we had a GREAT day! We were busy delivering temple invitations when the Elders called and told us to come help out with the Food Drive! It brought back lots of memories, because the last time I helped with the food drive, it was my first Saturday in Canada. It was so much fun though. The goal was to set a Guiness World Record...but we fell a little short. We collected 520,000 pounds of food!! It is a fun service project. The Mayor of Calgary even stopped by where we were helping. Then we continued delivering a few temple invitations...because we have to get to work if we are going to deliver all of them. Then we helped Carmen. We have to finish editing the book before we go to the temple. We are really close! She has such an incredible story and is such an amazing woman! Then we had supper and a lesson with Sister Ford. She is great! Sunday was incredible as always! It was also another busy day. But the busy days are always the best! So we had church. Funny story about church...there was a new Spanish speaking student at ESL and she came to church as well...so the Spanish Elders were there and they translated for her...but the best part was that they had to stay for Relief Society as well. It was funny...they said it was their first experience there. After church we had a correlation with our WML and WM's. Then we were off to our dinner appt. with Sister Larsen. She is a single sister and is really sweet. Then we had an incredible opportunity to teach a potential investigator. Her name is Jianni and she is from Brasil. She has been coming to church the last few weeks with one of the members in our ward and her and her children are interested in the church. So we taught them. Hopefully we will be able to continue teaching them! I will keep you posted! Then we had another lesson with the Ford boys about the Priesthood! It was great! Being a missionary is great!! I LOVE it!! I am so happy everything is good in good old Utah! I can't wait to see the Brigham City Temple! I am sure it is beautiful! CONGRATS Grandma!! I am so happy for you to be able to serve a mission!! I was really hoping you would come to Calgary Canada...but St. Louis is great too!! The people there will definitely be blessed by your service!! Sage...you are a stud! Keep rockin' the baseball field! I Love and miss you all! You are the BEST!! Love, Sister Kaitlyn Marchant